


how to love

by threadoflife



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Codependency, Dom/sub Undertones, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Torture, John can't cope, John has a hard time adjusting to Sherlock's humanity, John is a good person but he doesn't love himself, John works hard, John-centric, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Physical Abuse, Post-Season/Series 04, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock needs love too, and in the end they work it out, but he works hard, learning to love yourself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:52:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: Sometimes, John is needy.Sometimes, being told you are loved is the most painful thing in the world. Sometimes, John can't listen to it.Sherlock tells him anyway.Other times, Sherlock is needy. It's a bit harder for them to manage than John being needy: Sherlock has always accepted and seen John's humanity.It takes a while longer for John to come to terms with Sherlock's humanity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Self-soothing typing. 
> 
> I'm probably taking TLD!John a bit too far, but come on--he's hallucinated a personification of his own self loathing.
> 
> I love John so much.

Sometimes John is needy.

It isn’t often that this happens; just sometimes. It’s those days when Rosie’s crying is too much, and John hurries down to hand her to Mrs Hudson, who, being an angel, just pats his cheek and tells him to take a nap. It’s those days when John can’t sleep, and even though he stares at Rosie’s chest falling and rising when she sleeps in the cot beside his bed and he knows he should be grateful but can’t bring himself to feel anything. It’s those days when he spends hours outside walking London in pouring rain or biting wind after therapy–with a man, now; might as well go full in–so he doesn’t kick the walls of 221b to dust. His hand is still smarting from breaking their mirror a month ago.

It’s sometimes, when John is sitting at home and is overcome with sheer panic: irrational, overwhelming, it stabs into him, and he ends up with his head between his knees trying to breathe through it. It’s other times, too, when the rage boils over and he kicks the chairs around or throws a pan at the wall or yells himself hoarse.

The only good thing about those moments is he has enough self-control left to get Rosie out of the house or the flat before he does it. He’s sworn to himself never to do this before Rosie. Never.

It’s these times that John is needy. He is needy, and Sherlock is there.

John doesn’t know what he would do without Sherlock. 

Sherlock holds him down when he needs it–overpowers his smaller body with his bigger one, pressing John down into the mattress, hands tight around John’s wrists and not letting go. It’s the slow, persistent drag of his cock in and out of John in a maddening rhythm that turns faster, faster until it is insane and John wails his pleasure into the sheets, brain gone to mush. That’s John’s favourite: Sherlock taking control, giving the orders, and John just needs to obey. Auto-pilot. 

Other times Sherlock doesn’t make it easy for him. Other times, Sherlock will take John into his arms even when all John wants is for Sherlock to overpower him. No, these other times, Sherlock treats John like glass–as if he’s something rare and breakable. He holds John and lets John beat his fists against his chest until the rage is gone. He holds John and lets John shout into his chest about what a bad person he is until the self-loathing is gone. He holds John and lets him cry and scream and whimper until he goes silent.

And then he cups his hands around John’s face, palms on John’s cheeks, and forces John to look up at him. John, snotty-nosed and teary-eyed and _awful_ , resists; and that’s when Sherlock turns forceful in his gentleness. He softly but firmly fists John’s hair, drags his head back, and makes him look up at him, until John is staring right into those bright, odd eyes.

And then he says, “John,” and the particular tone of his voice lets John know he doesn’t want to hear this, any of this. But Sherlock continues, because in this, he has always been so much bolder, so much braver than John.

“John, you are a good person,” he says. “You are a good person, and I love you, and you deserve to be loved. You are not perfect, but you’re perfect for me, and I have never known anyone who is as kind, and brave, and wise as you. You are the best man I know, John. You are the best man I know, and it is an honour to love you.”

John chokes up, and every word is a stab of the knife to the chest; the panic surges up again. His breathing goes quick and shallow, his eyes unfocused. Everything feels hot. He can’t listen to this, he can’t listen–

“– _I love you_ , and I am cleverer than you, so I know better what kind of man you are than you do. And I am telling you, you are intelligent, and capable, and confident. You are everything I admire. Listen to me, John. You are loved. Mrs Hudson and I and Rosie, we love you. We couldn’t imagine life without you. I would rather die than be here a second without you. You are _invaluable_ , John, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you see this.”

With every word Sherlock says, John’s wounds inside gape open more. They become infected. They bleed. They _hurt_.

It’s so hard to love yourself when you can’t understand why anybody else would love you.

But Sherlock is forceful in his gentleness–keeps John’s head pulled back, keeps John listening, keeps on talking. _I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

And when John breaks down at the end–ugly sobbing, high little hurt noises as if he were being stabbed, over and over–Sherlock just cradles the back of his head like he’s glass, like he’s something rare and breakable, and keeps saying it.

_I love you. I love you. I’m here, you’re not alone.  
_

_I love you. You are loved. You are loveable._

In time, John learns to breathe through it.

In time, John learns to accept it.

In time, John learns to say it to himself.


	2. this bloody path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, is it Sherlock who is needy.
> 
> It's a bit more difficult that way around. John takes longer to be there for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> companion piece to the first.

Sometimes Sherlock is needy.

There are days when he feels like a shell: carved open, hollow, all but a rickety frame with nothing inside. He collapses into bed after a long day with Rosie--so exhausting for such a tiny person--or after a case that stretched out over days: in either case he’s very susceptible to deep sleep. Face-first into bed it goes, the sheets holding oblivion ready and open like a warm embrace. 

Then he dreams.

The plane never turned back; he kept flying; he had no drugs on him; Mycroft, though he knew where he was, cared no longer. Just him alone in Serbia in another dingy, dank cell, the only warmth provided by the blunt heat of cigarettes stubbed out on his skin. Darkness, so much darkness it even threw a perpetual shadow over every Mind Palace room he fled into. Then, there, in his Mind Palace: Mary back alive with John, sharing a kiss, then shooting him the next second wearing her wedding dress and a (real?) apologetic smile saying, “Sorry for shooting you that time, Sherlock,” and John, uncaring, focused on Rosie and smiling down at her in a way he’d never done for Sherlock.

Sherlock, invisible though his body was being tormented--invisible like he was before John, who had seen him, before Sherlock had taken his sight and Sherlock had once more turned invisible. 

Sherlock wishes he were invisibe when he sleeps. After those nights, he spends days avoiding anything saline.

There was force--violation--and _shame_ , so much shame. He thought he left it behind, but it creeps back up on him in his dreams, as if he’s forgotten to close the door to the attic inside his Mind Palace. 

He woud laugh at what a cliché he is--he truly has a madwoman in the attic--if he weren’t so busy trying to keep it together.

It’s those days he eats nothing, even though his stomach rumbles painfully when he feeds Rosie. When it’s worse, he hands Rosie to Mrs Hudson and disappears inside his room for hours on end, not caring to wash himself or eat or drink or move. He feels no longer safe doing it in the living room: that was another lifetime ago. His bedroom is now his sanctuary as much as it is his banishment. Other times he spends days in there.

He apologises to John, after. He has a responsibility now, a tiny little human John trusts him with. A tiny little human that depends on him. He does his best to keep his promise.

He can’t always keep his promise.

It isn’t often that it happens--but sometimes, he dreams, and he dreams not just of Serbia but of John, leaving him, laughing at him, and then laughing while kicking beating punching slapping _hurting_ him. He’s lucky when he doesn’t wake up yelling or screaming because worse than the physical pain is the visceral pain of it being _John_. It has happened, though. This has happened. John did this, and Sherlock’s treacherous body--working against his mental faculties; he has _forgiven_ John--reminds him of it. 

Sherlock is glad the dreams of Serbia and the morgue don’t mix. He’s not sure he could survive it if they did.

John and he clash, now and again. John doesn’t say it, but Sherlock can deduce it’s what he thinks: _you’re neglecting your duties. You said you’d be there for Rosie but you disappeared into your room for hours, sometimes you do it for days. You let me down_.

John never says it. He just swallows it down, probably thinks of the last time Sherlock held him while he cried and yelled himself hoarse, and thinks better of it. John is needy, too. Sherlock is there everytime he is.

He never thought he would ever be more stable than John in this life, but he is.

John has initial trouble adjusting to Sherlock’s fragility. First he simply ignores it, then he watches it from the sidelines warily, once or twice he swallows the accusation of Sherlock playing games again down. It’s a long process. It takes months. 

It takes months for John to adjust to seeing Sherlock’s humanity, bleeding out all over the place in 221B. It’s months he spends in therapy, and it’s these months Sherlock has never been more thankful for.

He adjusts, slowly. His cautious observing and defensive mechanism of accusing Sherlock deflate, exposing the true source underneath: a deep-seated, irrational fear of Sherlock lying again. 

Of Sherlock giving him another glimpse of everything he ever longed for and then taking that away again, with a quick jump off a roof perhaps. 

John confesses this while he’s drunk off his arse into the side of Sherlock’s neck. He slurs so badly Sherlock has to hold his breath and concentrate over the fog of alcohol to understand it at all. He mumbles, “All I ever wanted was for you to be human and I believed you were and then you _jumped_ ,” and it makes Sherlock freeze, torn between guilt and anger--he’s apologised so often now--but what he ends up saying into the room, hushed, is simply: “I did it to save you. Because I love you.”

At that, John pulls back, his alcohol-heavy eyes bright and wet and so guileless. The last time, Sherlock thinks, that he has seen this particular gaze was in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen throughout the affair with Irene Adler: fond, affectionate, genuine, open, yielding. _Trusting_. 

John’s lips part, and his breath is warm on Sherlock’s chin. “Sometimes I believe you,” John whispers in a rush as if he’s afraid someone would hear him. “But I don’t kow if you’re real. You said it so often when you were gone those two years, because--because I saw you. When you were gone.”

John swallows, blinking hard. Sherlock stares at this terrifying, miraculous sight before him. Something inside him is quivering and then shrivels up. He feels bile at the back of his throat.

John closes his eyes. “Tell me,” he says. 

To the room? To Sherlock? To the Sherock in his head? Sherlock decides it doesn’t matter. The only difference is he _is_ here now, and he can respond. An empty room or a hallucination can’t respond. Sherlock can.

“Tell me when I’m sober. Kiss me. Show me. I won’t believe you.”

The same week, Sherlock does. 

It significantly shortens John’s adjustment period. Something about having Sherlock slack-jawed and open-mouthed beneath him as he kisses his way down his neck must work for John. Is it that now that Sherlock shares these physical delights and indignities with him, Sherlock is more human to him? Sherlock doesn’t know; John is still an enigma to him. But there is something about being allowed to touch Sherlock that seems to calm John, soothing him.

Or is it not the physical aspect at all? Is it that at least every second day, Sherlock will take John’s hand, kiss the back of it--lingeringly, gently--and say, “I am in love with you,” like the wonder it is? Is it that? 

Whatever it is, Sherlock is relieved it has happened. Because then when he is needy, John is there.

Sherlock dreams, and when he wakes yelling, John is there, gentling him. It’s all John ever does. He never holds or forces Sherlock down. He tolerates Sherlock’s kicking and thrashing but doesn’t stop him, only when Sherlock is about to inflict damage to himself. 

Sherlock is glad for it. He doesn’t know how he would have reacted if John had tried to hold him down. 

Once John kisses him hard, though. He kisses him hard on the mouth, draws Sherlock’s lower lip between his mouth and _pulls_ and _bites_. The shock-surprise of it tears like a shudder through Sherlock, completely derailing the trainwreck his thoughts are headed towards. As John bites him, his captor stops pushing the knife into his skin; the other stops bringing down the pipe; the plane stops; Mary does not pull the trigger. 

It’s like a movie in which the tragedy is about to happen suddenly stops, disrupted--only to be substituted by another story, a brighter one, a better one.

Sherlock makes an ungodly noise in his throat--sounding more hurt than he ever did in his dreams--and he clutches at John, draws him closer, and begins pleading, “Please, _please_ ,” into John’s mouth, asking for something he does not understand.

John does. John does, and he shows him.

He does not force or hold Sherlock down: Sherlock goes willingly on his back or his stomach for him. He asks, “Yes?” and Sherlock nods, flips himself around and buries his face into his own arm. Then John touches him--grips his arm hard and holds it still--and asks, “Yes?” Then John cups the back of his thighs and asks, “Yes?” Then John has his slick fingers before Sherlock’s hole and asks, “Yes?”

And Sherlock says, “Yes,” and, “Yes,” and “ _Yes_ ,” each time.

And when John pushes into him, slow--and then hard--and then harder--and then just _snapping_ his hips forward again--again--and again, the slap of their bodies together drowning out the remnants of sounds of Sherlock’s dream--he brings his hand to Sherlock’s face, trails his fingertips so gently, so tenderly, down Sherlock’s temple in a stark contrast to the rest of his body--and he asks, “Yes?” and Sherlock whines, “ _Yes_ ,” and turns his head and allows John to kiss him and touch him in love.

Sometimes, Sherlock is needy. He was alone for very long, and then he was alone for a while, and then he was alone again for a very long while.

He hurt. He bled. He despaired.

No longer.

Now John holds him after his dreams, because there are no secrets left between them. Sherlock has laid them all bare: his desires, his shame. He stands before John bare and human and himself. He no longer needs to wrap himself up in his coat or a dressing gown or harsh words or deductions. John sees him, sees all of him, and though it took a long while--Sherlock’s feet beginning to bleed from walking this rocky, long path--they are here, now.

Sherlock hurt. He bled. He despaired.

But there is John at the end, and he holds Sherlock’s bleeding feet, kisses them, wraps them up in his healing, steady hands, and says, “I love you, and I’m so, so sorry”--

there is John at the end, who is older and sadder by far than the John Sherlock met in a lab at St. Bart’s--but it is the John who again looks at him as if he has hung the moon; this is the John from Mrs Hudson’s kitchen again, staring at Sherlock as if he is the most precious, beautiful, beloved thing on earth.

And this time this gaze is for William Sherlock Scott Holmes, not Sherlock Holmes, the detective.

Sherlock’s feet have scars from walking. They will never properly heal.

But for this gaze, he would walk the same path all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw codependency, tw mental illness, tw violence, tw addiction

There are times when they can’t be there for one another: there are times when they are haunted by their ghosts simultaneously, and neediness manifests in the worst of ways.

In these moments, Sherlock can’t deal with John’s emotional… privacy. His own ghosts haunting him too hard, he lacks the finesse and patience and kindness to draw John out, to be there for him the way John needs him to be. He is too short-tempered, too caught up in his own head to be able to react appropriately. He locks himself away in the bedroom over day and disappears into the depths of London at night without telling John where he is going. He alternates between snapping at John and completely ignoring him while chain-smoking.

In these moments, too, John can’t deal with Sherlock’s fragility. His own ghosts being too present, he falls back on old defence mechanisms. His mantra of “Sherlock doesn’t feel things that way” doesn’t hold up in the face of Sherlock’s all too frank, terrifying sentimentality. Like he did when he was with Mary, John turns away from Sherlock’s soft, bright eyes and the grief on his face. He stays longer at work than needed, drinks too much at pubs, and when he is home, he acts as if he doesn't see the puffiness of Sherlock's eyes or the way his hands tremble.

Sherlock fails John: he handles John’s neediness with inept hands that cause more damage than anything else.

John fails Sherlock: he pretends Sherlock’s wounds are invisible, pretends he doesn’t see them.

When cigarettes aren't enough, Sherlock wants the cocaine back. His inept hands that are incapable of treating John’s pain the right way itch with addiction.

John wants an outlet for his violence or alcohol; he isn’t picky. When it’s especially bad, a combination of both will do. It's a last resort, but it's been known to happen. 

(He takes the violence out on random strangers who mess with him. Sometimes he provokes them into it. What he never does is go near Baker Street or Sherlock like this. He has learned his lesson.)

It’s hard, these times when they can’t be there for one another because they are simultaneously needy.

It takes them months to figure it out. Sometimes, the best solutions are the easiest. Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to work.

Though their respective traumas are of course very different in nature, there is a common factor: isolation. John was two years without Sherlock, and then Sherlock was without John, who was with Mary. There are other wounds, yes, but it is in these times that those are the particular stitches that burst open, always. Sherlock, stepping off a roof, isolation: a vicious cycle. 

Isolation. How laughable, John thinks during the times when he’s okay. How laughable; he was all his life without Sherlock before he knew him. Why should isolation be that one forever recurring, deciding factor?

Sherlock tells him: because I did not know meaning before you; the meaning of things, of love, of life. Of meaning itself. Because you are in everything, and everything had no meaning before I met you.

How Sherlock can verbalise what John had lived with always and never even noticed before he met Sherlock, John does not know.

The solution is obvious then, really. They curl up in bed and stare into each other’s faces and hold hands. John takes Sherlock’s pulse, obsessively. He stares hard without blinking at Sherlock as if he wants to make sure Sherlock is still there, afraid if he closes his eyes or looks away a moment too long, Sherlock will disappear completely or will begin to flicker because he is a hallucination. Sherlock kisses John or strokes his fingers over his forehead and cheek and chin to be reassured John still wants him, loves him. Sometimes he says, “John,” for no reason at all.

In particularly bad moments, they both go the bathroom together not to lose sight of each other when one of them has to pee. They make food together, eat it cross-legged on the bed while staring more at each other's faces than their food.

Most the time, they just hold each other, until they can’t tell their heartbeats and breathing apart anymore.

Their coping mechanism flirts with the edge of obsession, is absolutely into co-dependency. Should anything ever happen to Mrs Hudson, they have to consider what to do with Rosie when they're in this state.

Ella would have called it unhealthy. No one on their right mind would have called it “good.”

It is true: Sherlock is not good for John, and John is not good for Sherlock.

But they are right for each other.

*

Sometimes when it happens, John wants to say things but will only say them when Sherlock is sleeping.

So Sherlock pretends to be sleeping. (He isn’t actually sleeping, too terrified of waking up alone or of John getting up without him to go to the loo or the living room or somewhere else where he isn’t right by Sherlock’s side.)

They both know Sherlock is pretending, but it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes it’s just an, “I love you,” whispered over and over and over again as if to make up for all the times John wanted to but hadn’t said it. Sometimes it’s, “You’re beautiful,” a sentiment that is often in John’s brain but which he can only bring himself to say in moments of emotional exposure, such as when Sherlock kisses the back of his hand unprompted or when he washes Sherlock’s back in the shower.

Other times, John says, “You make me brave. I don’t know if I could be a father to Rosie if it weren’t for you. I don’t know if I could have stayed and cried before you if you hadn’t shown you wanted me to stay so desperately. I don’t know if I would have kept going for long when I came back if I hadn’t met you.

You make me brave. I can tell my daughter I love her without being afraid something bad is going to happen because you taught me how to do that. Thank you.”

The next time it happens, John whispers, into the curve of Sherlock’s neck with his hand on Sherlock’s wrist feeling his pulse, “When I say you make me brave I mean you make me honest and unafraid to feel.”

He spends the next moments following that sentiment breathing shallowly in the dark, feeling exposed, flayed open, but safe. Like a crime scene: there is a death, something terrible has happened–John has fallen in love–but Sherlock is the most competent man for the job: there could be no one else.

“I don’t think I could ever have been in love with anyone else,” John says into Sherlock’s jaw, hushed and fast. “It had to be you.”

When Sherlock’s pulse under his fingers begins speeding up and John feels Sherlock’s body tremble slightly–-he leans up and over and kisses the trail of salt on Sherlock’s cheek away.

They don’t say a word: John does not acknowledge he knows Sherlock is awake, and Sherlock keeps pretending to sleep.

Sometimes John’s bravery is only to be found in the stillness of the night, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

Because, see-–it had to be John for Sherlock, too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is angry at life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't a coherent story. they're more like one-shots of the same universe: how sherlock and john post s4 find their way into each other again, how they navigate that terrain with their respective issues.

Sherlock is angry at life.

It’s after John locks himself away again–literally too, in their bedroom–and Sherlock is hit by a wave of self-loathing so devastating it sends his fingers itching for the shape of a syringe.

He stands before the closed door, hearing nothing: John is either biting into the pillow or his own fist to stifle the sounds of his sobbing. It’s the first time in two months and thirteen days that John has shut himself away again. Sherlock respects this decision–he leaves the door locked–but he does not respect the fact that things are the way they are.

That John, the best, wisest, and kindest human being he has ever encountered, suffers a mental anguish so severe it makes ordinary life difficult to navigate at times. It’s unfair; it isn’t the way it should be. Sherlock knows that things are never the way they should be, but as very often his hard logic encounters reckless irrationality where John is concerned, so the thought sticks like an awful itch he can’t scratch: it’s unfair. John shouldn’t be suffering like this. John doesn’t deserve any of this, he should be happy and not depressed, John is so good, he’s so good he–

the sound of the bedroom door banging open stops Sherlock in his tracks. Sense returns.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice, calm and stiff, breaking through the–the haze. (What haze?) (Why is there blood rushing in his ears? Why is–) “Sherlock, what are you…”

He trails off. Sherlock takes the moment of pause to assess everything; he’s breathing rapidly, heart rate is elevated, he’s tense and tight all over, face flushed, hands trembling. Below him on the floor, a disaster: cups and a pot and three plates, all broken. The table is a disaster. There are several cuts on Sherlock’s fingers.

The evidence is obvious.

“I,” he begins, doesn’t know what to say. The sudden rush of fury and adrenaline leaves him exhausted, oddly vacant with John’s red, swollen eyes on him. “It’s–it’s unfair.”

Life is not about fairness or unfairness, not about deserving or undeserving. With John, it is. Sherlock swallows the irrationality down; the bitter taste lingers.

John should be happy, lead a fair life. He isn’t, and he doesn’t. It shouldn’t be this way. Sherlock can’t fix it. He needs to. He can’t.

“I,” he says and then has nothing to say anymore.

John doesn’t apologise for locking himself away and Sherlock out, as he once promised he wouldn’t do anymore. Sherlock does not apologise half the kitchen is a mess.

He just opens his arms when John walks into them.

They stand among shards and shattered pieces, tear-stained apology-less faces turned towards one another as they hold on tight to their difficult, loving selves.

After a minute or two of this, John’s shoulders begin shaking; little noises escape him.

Sherlock very carefully does not move or say anything.

“Look–look at us,” John gasps against his chest, voice high-pitched and muffled. “Both fucked up as hell. Wonder what Ella would say to that.”

There’s a pause–and then the little noises return, only this time louder, so Sherlock can identify them as snorts and giggling.

John is giggling hysterically into Sherlock’s shirt over their respective psychological difficulties.

As always, Sherlock follows. He buries his face into John’s hair and huffs low, inappropriate laughs into it.

Like two lunatics, they stand there and giggle over their lacking mental health.

John is right: Ella would likely have had both of them sectioned. They’re codependent, dangerously so, and absolutely imperfect.

But what no one understands is that despite being imperfect, they’re right for another, holding tight and mending what can be mended because they love, they love so deeply.

John tilts his head, raises his face, and Sherlock bends down: what John lacks, Sherlock gives back. When Sherlock lacks, John gives.

Imperfect rightness. It’s the most wonderful thing Sherlock has ever been granted.


	5. learn to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next time Sherlock has a breakdown, he's alone. John isn't there.
> 
> It makes all the difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is something deeply personal. if you comment, please be kind.

John is not here.

The craving comes over Sherlock, sudden, unmerciful. Mercy has never had a part in this: this has always been a language without gratitude, without justice. It’s rarer, now; it’s hardly to never, these days. Rarer—hardly—never—but still. But _still._

More than fifteen years after that first craze of addiction, the madness still is in Sherlock’s blood. _Cocaine. Cocaine_. He knows there are sweeter things, better things, healthier things: he knows this now. Healthier and more effective, too, not as temporary, not as artificial. There hasn’t been a case in two weeks. John is out with Rosie today, visiting Harry, and thank God, thank God life knows small mercies after all.

John is not here. The craving comes over Sherlock, again. The hole opens, gaping, an all-consuming tinnitus like a perpetual itch starting to chafe open his skin from the inside. He plays the violin until he wants to shatter it, he stares fixedly out the window until the daylight hurts his temples, he showers until the water runs cold, he kicks furniture and breaks cups and plates but the noise doesn’t drown out the craving.

Moriarty—no, not Moriarty, only a shadow, a shadow of Moriarty, the last stubborn remnants of his self-loathing—beckons Sherlock with an insane smile and clacking chains into the bedroom, where the blinds are still drawn. John is not here. Sherlock sits alone, on the bed, the sheet wound tight around his shivering, needy body. He sweats, hot and cold. His toes hurt, the soles of his feet pulled towards the ground. He sits alone, fighting, fighting, _fighting._

John is not here. It makes all the difference.

There is no one to hold Sherlock now: John is not here, and he does not hold Sherlock. There are no palms cupping Sherlock’s shoulder and cheek, no beloved, warm voice insisting, “You can do this, you’re better than this, I know you, and I love you,” over and over and over, into the shell of Sherlock’s ear. There is not even the memory of John; Moriarty and his jeers take up all the space of his Mind Palace, threatening failure in every corner, every shadow.

There is no one to hold Sherlock now, to help him through this. He’s alone.

It makes all the difference.

Because Sherlock does it: because he fists his hair and tears at it, and whispers, desperately, wretchedly, frantically, “I don’t deserve this _, I don’t deserve this_ ,” while rocking back and forth. Because he resists, he, Sherlock, alone, against every inch of his skin wanting, needing, craving the stimulation, and he doesn’t give in. The self-loathing is an impenetrable fortress, its walls thick and fatal and unforgiving, and there is nothing else he can see and feel and taste but the urge to self-destruct, give in, yield, God, God, _Christ_ , that choking, hot wave of shame—

“I don’t deserve this,” Sherlock whimpers into his trembling hands, salt on his lips. The words mean nothing to him. They are hollow, meaningless. He repeats them, like a curse. “I don’t deserve this, I’m better than this, I’m okay, I’m okay, _I’m all right_ , someone loves me—”

He does this until the wave of shame crests, boiling, spilling all over him, a feeling like implosion, like if he doesn’t give in—if he doesn’t give in, he will—

“I’m— _I’m fucking better than this_!” Sherlock suddenly yells into his hands, hoarse, unconvinced, but with the full force of his self-loathing. The words are dragged out of his throat, every letter a scratch of the knife to his vocal cords. He cannot stop them. “I’m—fucking— _loved_!”

When the adrenaline at last ebbs away, Sherlock is limp and exhausted. He keeps rocking back and forth until the weariness pulls him into a light, lovely slumber. In sleep, there are no thoughts.

There is no triumph, no instant gratification. There is no one there, there is no feeling but a slow, intense wave of embarrassment at being reduced to this wrecked, needy state.

Sherlock does not feel loved. Sherlock does not love himself.

When a bird learns to fly, it may fall from the nest, hurt itself. There may be no one to pick it back up, bring it home—show it how flying works.

But it will try: again, and again, and again.

Until it will eventually fly, and the freedom among the skies and the wind will be all the sweeter for it.


End file.
